Achewood

Achewood first came on the Webcomics scene in 2001, starring a small cast of characters based on author ChrisOnstad's wife's collection of stuffed animals. Early strips tend surreal (Philippe standing on a drum machine manual, something about toys masturbating, etc.) Soon, though, the strip takes on a more narrative format while retaining that surreality, eventually becoming one of the greatest character-driven strips of all time.

 

 The strip also rocks a huge lexicon of unique, sometimes bizarre slang, such as rad chiles (testicles), grufflin' (eating), audiocasting (urinating), etc. These terms, and the way they're used by characters, results in Achewood having almost its own seperate language from anything else on the internet.

 As for the characters, you just have to know this: Roast Beef suffers from crippling depression, has died something like four times and his best friend is Ray Smuckles. Ray is super rich and good natured, but very foolish (he once purchased Keith Moon's head, the biggest laser and Airwolf on a whim.) Lyle is an alcoholic (now with a tragic past!) Cornelius is an old, wise bear who used to write children's books but now tends bar at The Dude And Catastrophe, has a hot young stripper girlfriend and is a badass. Pat is a jerk (recently, a gay jerk, but the two are unrelated.) Nice Pete is from the south and murders people. Teodor is sort of normal. Liebot tells lies, but no one but other robots seems to notice. Philppe is five.

 Recommended story arcs include Hacking Yahoo (in which a fake personal ad is posted in Ray's name) The Great Outdoor Fight (three days, three acres, three thousand men,) Philippe Kidnapped (some great Nice Pete moments) and Cartliage Head (we can't really explain this one at all.)

As mentioned, Time named it the best graphic novel of 2007. More notable than that rag, however, Cracked called it the funniest Webcomic around (See The Eight Funniest Webcomics)